


Life Shifts

by maudlindebauchery



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Murder House
Genre: Charles Montgomery is a Doctor(tm), F/M, Pregnancy, This marriage is rough, but in the beginning they were a little okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 11:03:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19208074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maudlindebauchery/pseuds/maudlindebauchery
Summary: A family, by definition, evolves over time. A married couple alone is very different from a married couple with children. Charles and Nora Montgomery learn this together. Pre-canon.





	Life Shifts

_A Nonlinear Study of the Lives (and Deaths) of the Montgomery Family_

 

#### 1922 

"Charles..." A young blonde woman mumbled as she crept into her very own bedroom, clearly wrought with unease. It circled her like a halo, making her shake, drawing fine brows together on her white forehead, sending pale blue eyes darting about the room, blinking, and pulling her un-painted lips into a thin line.

The man in question looked up from his place in the grand bed they shared and tucked a thumb between the pages of a thick fiction novel. He raised his eyebrows, curiously trailing his gaze over his wife, perhaps in hopes he could discover the cause of her skittishness without asking outright. If his wife was anything like her usual self, she would snap at him if he asked directly.

Nora stood in the doorway in silence, staring very hard at her feet, rather than her husband. Her behavior was baffling, Charles had never seen her so nervous in the year or so he had known her. It was completely unlike her. Nora was headstrong, consistently outspoken, always willing to say exactly what was on her mind, lest they were in polite company. (In that case, she would still give life to her thoughts, but in a clever, underhanded fashion which Charles had recently become fluent in.) This was not that Nora, at all. Now, she was quivering, clutching a handkerchief and fiddling idly with the lace, not even looking him in the eyes.

"Is everything alright, dear?" He asked, entirely trepidatious. He wasn't sure he even dared to begin the conversation. With the mannerisms she had put on, it could be that someone had died, and that would be a strange new side of Nora that he had yet to see – a vulnerable one. Preparing himself for what serious matters were sure to come, Charles sat up properly in bed, setting his book down on the bedside table. "Nora, darling, come sit down. You can tell me what it is... There, now."

Nora obeyed and crossed the room to sit shakily beside him, though she still refused to meet his eyes. _How serious could the matter possibly be?_ Charles wondered. He ran a hand from his wife's shoulder down the soft length of her pale arm. "Really, there's no need to be so frightened, you look as though you've seen a ghost. What's the matter?"

Nora took a shaky inhale and met his eyes with new, dark sobriety. "Charles... I'm pregnant."

Charles almost laughed. The look on the young doctor's face shifted from one of shock, to one of realization, to one of amusement – none of which Nora had been expecting. "Yes, I know!" He stated, all too nonchalant.

She was floored, and somewhat appalled. "What do you mean you _know?_ "

He realized after he had said it that it might not have been the wisest response, but there was no going back after the words had been released. So, he went on to offer support to his claim, like the scientist he was. "We slept together on our honeymoon precisely forty days ago. We have since then, of course, but your menstrual cycle should have begun thirty days ago, and I know that it did not. Therefore, it's been absent for a month, it could not be as late as this unless you were facing a serious health problem, but we've ruled that out now. In addition, you've been ill in the mornings –– you are not quiet about it, either. But, do humor me, dear, how did _you_ find out?"

"You sound incredibly arrogant!" Nora huffed. His reaction was nothing like what she had spent all those frightful hours imagining it would be. She had foreseen nerves, shock, terror, maybe even cold feet from the flighty doctor she had married. However, the more she thought of it, she decided that she should have known this was exactly what Charles would do. Of course he had already discovered her pregnancy on his own –– he _was_ a doctor, after all. He didn't even seem to have any feelings on the matter, he had simply set out his facts before her. There was no childish surprise, at all. For once, he was level-headed: A proper, responsible, adult husband.

"I'm not being arrogant, darling, if I am absolutely correct. Were my numbers off?" Charles asked.

Nora sighed, relenting. "No." All the man ever sought was approval. He looked almost innocent, dark eyes widened with a combination of anxiety and hope.

"Right! There you are, then." Apparently, her response had appeased him. Charles studied his wife's face for a moment, then offered another observation. "You look unhappy."

"Really?" Nora asked, mirthless. "Perhaps it's because this is not how a husband should react to his wife's news, Charles!" She didn't always know why she scolded him. Something in the man did not live up to her familial expectations, the ones her mother had drilled into her, the ones she had fantasized about as a child –– she could never admit such a thing to him, though. Instead, her discontent would be released through passive aggression.

Still, the notion flew completely over his head. "What do you mean?"

Nora groaned. She could smack him! She wouldn't, but she certainly would have liked to. He never understood anything about anything, especially for being such a 'genius'. It was frightening how easily her nervousness could be cloaked in rage. "How am I to know if you would even like to have this baby, Charles?! That was no sort of reaction, at all!"

He gaped for a moment, looking almost ashamed. "That's why you're unhappy?"

"Yes! Silly man!" She snapped.

Charles faltered. "I was unaware you needed approval on my part. I assumed it went without saying that I would like to have this baby."

Nora blinked. "No– no, it does not go without saying."

"But, I sleep with you..." Charles went on to try proving his point, once again working through it like it was some medical anomaly that needed to be solved with hard evidence and notes.

"Yes, but––"

"I married you..."

"I know that, but––"

"I love you. I am wildly in love with you, dear. I married you in hopes we would eventually have a family, and now we will. I'm very pleased. I deeply apologize for giving you the wrong impression." He fiddled with the stitching on their bedspread, avoiding his wife's eyes.

Nora fell silent, her criticism gagged by affection. That was exactly what she had needed to hear. His clinical logic did absolutely nothing for her, but she always liked to hear that she was loved, cared for, protected. Charles Montgomery was an odd man –– incredibly intelligent, inventive, sometimes witty, always dutiful, but so very strange. Still, he was her husband, and he loved her, as he made clear through his strange, roundabout methods. It was almost reluctant, the manner in which she settled herself beside him and rested her head on his broad, _silk pajama_ -clad chest. She actually picked his hand up, herself, and wrapped it around her waist by force. "Charles Montgomery, you responded to your wife's pregnancy announcement with _'I know'._ " She griped through an air of teasing, sleepy indifference.

" _I know_." Charles replied.

**Author's Note:**

> What's up I love the Montgomerys. This is my first fic sort of?? Comment, like, subscribe, post ur blood type below, etc.
> 
> Important note - while I am endlessly fascinated by the Montgomerys, and I love both of their characters to death (haha), I will never portray them as a model of a healthy relationship or romanticize their dynamic. They were a very bad match, Nora was abusive, Charles was an addict, I'll never blur that out for the sake of writing something cute. Real life has real people, and real people are messy. With that disclaimer, enjoy!


End file.
